God delights in His creation, in us. "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you came to birth I consecrated you" (Jeremiah 1:5). I am amazed at this thought when I feel the Spirit animate me, or even when I feel the joy of physically running.
I want to share an actual dream that reflects God's acceptance of and delight in us:
"For whatever reason, and dreams don't give us a reason, I was asked to go to the airport and pick up Jesus, who was arriving on a flight. I was understandably nervous and frightened. A bevy of apprehensions beset me.
"How would I recognize him? What would he look like? How would he react to me? What would I say to him? Would I like what I saw? More frightening yet, would he like what he saw when he looked at me?
"With these feelings surging through me, I stood, as one stands in a dream, at the end of a long corridor nervously surveying the passengers who were walking toward me. How would I recognize Jesus, and would his first glance at me reflect his disappointment?
"But this was a good dream, and it taught me as much about God as I'd learned in all my years studying theology. All my fears were alleviated in a second. What happened was the opposite of all my expectations. Suddenly, walking down the corridor toward me was Jesus, smiling, beaming with delight, coming straight for me, rushing, eager to meet me.
"Everything about him was stunningly and wonderfully disarming. There was no awkward moment; everything about him erased that. His eyes, his face, and his body embraced me without reserve and without judgment.
"I knew he saw straight through me, knew all my faults and weaknesses, my lack of substance, and none of it mattered. And for that moment, none of it mattered to me either. Jesus was eager to meet me!" (from PRAYER Our deepest Longing by Rev. Ron Rolheiser)
Ron goes on to say, "We live with too much fear of God. Partly it is bad theology, but mostly we fear God because we've never experienced the kind of love that is manifest in God. We take for granted that anyone who sees us as we really are (in our unloveliness, weaknesses, pathology, sin, insubstantiality) will, in the end, be as disappointed with us as we are with ourselves.
"We avoid God when we are most in need of love and acceptancebecause we think God is disappointed in us." But God "actually understands us, accepts us, delights in us, and is eager to smile at us," Ron says.
If we knew how much God loves us, it would make all the difference!
